Ordinary Faith

For a long time, I believed that a strong faith would feel different.

I imagined that people who were truly close to God woke up excited to pray, never struggled to concentrate at church and always felt certain of His presence in their lives.

Their relationship with Him seemed effortless, while mine often felt very ordinary and flawed.

When my life became busier after marriage, children, work and all the responsibilities that come with ordinary adulthood, the "quiet" I once imagined faith required disappeared.

My prayers became shorter and more incomplete, and I often lost my place halfway through the "Heavenly Father." That was because my prayer time had become something I did while packing lunchboxes, folding washing, driving to school and commuting to work.

I found myself arriving at church carrying not only my children but also a head full of shopping lists, unfinished emails and all the little worries that seem to follow me through the week.

For a while, I wondered whether my faith had become weaker and how far I was from God.

I missed the moments when prayer felt peaceful and when reading Scripture seemed to answer exactly the questions I was asking.

It was easy to believe that if I wasn't feeling particularly close to God, then perhaps I wasn't growing spiritually at all.

The more I reflected on it, however, the more I realised I had confused faith with emotion.

Our culture teaches us to trust our feelings. We are encouraged to make decisions based on what feels right, what feels authentic or what brings us happiness.

While our emotions are a gift from God, they were never intended to become the foundation of our relationship with Him.

Faith is not a feeling and it asks something different of us.

It invites us to continue trusting God even when prayer feels dry, to keep opening His Word even when today's reading seems ordinary, and to continue gathering with His people despite the distractions we inevitably carry with us.

None of those decisions depend on how we happen to feel on a particular day but on whether we believe God remains faithful, regardless of our emotions.

The writer of Hebrews describes faith as "confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1).

That verse is so meaningful to me because it reminds me that faith has always involved trust rather than certainty and perseverance rather than emotion.

Looking back, I can see that my relationship with God was built through hundreds of ordinary decisions that barely seemed significant or particularly emotional at the time.

I chose to pray before starting the car and opened my Bible before reaching for my phone. I went to church on Sundays when staying home sounded easier and thanked God for small blessings that could easily have gone unnoticed. I trusted Him through seasons when I couldn't understand what He was doing.

None of those moments felt remarkable while they were happening. In fact, most of them felt almost forgettable.

Yet together they have shaped my faith far more than any emotional experience I can remember from my teenage years.

Perhaps this is how spiritual maturity grows.

Nowadays I don't chase extraordinary encounters with God because I have learned to remain faithful in the ordinary rhythms of everyday life.

Much like a healthy marriage isn't sustained by grand romantic gestures but by thousands of small acts of love repeated over many years, our relationship with God is strengthened by choosing Him again and again, even when those choices feel wonderfully ordinary.

That has become one of the most comforting truths of my Christian life.

I no longer measure my faith by how emotional my prayers feel or by whether I leave church feeling inspired every Sunday.

Instead, I have begun to recognise God's work in the steady practice of continuing to seek Him, trusting that He is just as present on the ordinary days as He is on the extraordinary ones.

Perhaps that is what ordinary faith looks like.

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Ana Harrison is a writer, wife and mother of three. Through Daily Wonder, she shares reflections on faith, motherhood and books with a growing community of women who believe that an extraordinary life is often built through ordinary moments.

https://anaharrison.substack.com/